mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

A momentous event. Ohio State's situation, already pushing known boundaries of realness, just broke through into uncharted territory with the return of Michigan ur-blogger iBlog for Cookies. Roused from a nearly two-year absence, Vijay lays out the case for trouble:

the OSU fan belief that the school's compliance department is top notch is non-starter at this point. We have found out that they weren't monitoring athlete's vehicles, that they never really investigated Terrelle Pryor's loaner cars, that they never looked into Aaron Kniffin's relationships with players, that they never acted on information about Dennis Talbott, et al. …

The second line of defense, that this is all about Jim Tressel and 5 players, is also a non-starter, as this now appears to involve the compliance office and at least one assistant coach (one of the people who was notified directly about NCAA violations involving Talbott in 2009).

A third line of defense, or deflection, is the belief of some Ohio State fans that no program could withstand the scrutiny they have been subjected to without such problems surfacing. But a widely believed to be extremely corrupt Southern Cal program was subjected to just such scrutiny, and 3 major violations were found (2 involving Reggie Bush, one involving basketball player OJ Mayo). Michigan faced a hostile local media that first spent months investigating the academics of our football program (and found no academic fraud, no eligibility problems and no NCAA violations), and then our practice habits. Combined with the scrutiny of the NCAA, they turned up evidence of practices that ran 15 minutes over and of Quality Control assistant coaches exceeding their allowed job descriptions.

No scandals. No players suspended. No coaches forced to resign. No covers of Sports Illustrated.

There is plenty more; IBFC's strength was always laying out the facts in pursuit of a conclusion inescapable by the end of the post.

yeah, this is happening for free

Oh and that Talbott thing. So when it came about that Pryor was playing golf with the memorabilia dude I was kind of like "bah, who cares," but out of that story comes this image:

As gifts go, walking into your young son's birthday party in Columbus, Ohio, with the star quarterback of the Ohio State football team and a linebacker is the stuff of dreams. Getting that quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, at the birthday party two years in a row with a teammate seems almost incomprehensible.

Yet there was Pryor in successive December parties with different teammates for Dennis J. Talbott's son -- sights that left even partygoers wondering about what they were seeing.

"We all thought it was crazy," said one 2010 partygoer who spoke to ESPN's "Outside the Lines" on the condition of anonymity. "It was a Saturday night, and I remember sitting there watching them watch the SEC championship game [on TV]."

Terrelle Pryor. At a kid's birthday party. With some guy who drives around in a car with a "TPRYOR" license plate. Eating cake. Playing pin the tail on the donkey. Signing stuff. Listening to the Wiggles.

That in and of itself is iron-clad proof Talbott (not either of those Talbotts) was paying Pryor. Terrelle Pryor does not go to children's birthday parties for free. If anything, the 40k cited by ESPN is low. Terrelle Pryor wearing a festive hat is only happening for low six digits. That's the price—children's birthday parties are awful.

The rest of that OTL story is the usual tale of a creepy middle-aged guy who couldn't stay enrolled at OSU with massive tax debt ingratiating himself with Ohio State football players thanks to nothing more than a sizeable quantity of derring-do (according to him) and fat stacks of cash (according to everyone else). This one has some added flair: Talbott once told the Plain Dealer he'd spent five years in the minors as pitching prospect, and a business rival actually fired this quote off:

"I have been waiting 20 years for somebody to get him," Godwin said of Talbott. "I am a born-again Christian and wish no ill will. I just want him to stop hurting people."

As IBFC alludes to above, the way it makes OSU's situation worse is it adds another data point to the pile of Buckeye compliance aintgiveadamn and implicates another OSU coach, the unnamed assistant who concerned golf club employees talked to about Pryor's free rounds. If you want the whole picture I'll again refer you to IBFC but it's even harder to see OSU not getting the hammer after the latest bit.

This isn't even hard for reporters. They are heading down to Columbus and people are falling out of helicopters screaming about NCAA violations. They must feel like a guy who sits down at a poker table with a 20 grand minimum buy-in and finds the rest of the table arguing about whether a flush beats a straight. When the Free Press launched the Jihad they had to resort to misrepresenting stuff freshmen said and anonymous quotes from people who had no idea what the rules were, and follow-up stories were nonexistent. This is a feeding frenzy.

[RANDOM AWESOME COMMENT ON PLAIN DEALER STORY:

blah, blah, blah. If the rules are so utterly ridiculous and are ignored by almost everyone, then when you investigate any successful organization you will find minor errors. YOu act like Tressel is the devil or something. He was not actively endorsing this type of activity but you want to feed him to the wolves just the same. How do you follow him around a golf course even if you do know who he is playing with is an evil type? He does have to coach all the other kids plus teach classes, run practices, and I am sure many other things. I am sure he would have been awake 24/7 he would have dealt with it. Just stop making a hard working, successful American out to be something that is not warranted.

/end]

Jersey take. I retweeted some guy who mentioned that Adidas's stripe fetish made it awfully convenient that Michigan deployed "legacy" jerseys that looked nothing like anything anyone has ever worn at M but did have stripes out the wazoo. (Also stripey: the Big Chill jersey, but at least that had a breathtakingly ugly historical precedent.) Another guy said "give it a rest," so maybe this is a played out topic. The other option is the guy doesn't know how twitter works—who's following who, buddy?

Con: Unless the jerseys sell like crazy, in which case it becomes another jersey next year, and so on and so forth. I wonder if in 2012, it will be a retro Schembechler era white jersey for the game at Notre Dame or the game against Alabama.

Pro: Wait, that would be cool.

Con: Yeah, that's the problem. You let your guard down on one thing, and the next thing you know, maize jerseys.

Why would this stop? Ohio State is doing this pro combat thing every year now, and always for the Michigan game. We've taken the first step down a slippery clownslope. "It's not that bad" is the first move towards Idiocracy Stadium.

This disconnect between theory and practice is better legislated at the conference level. Far from ensuring the SEC maintains a competitive advantage, it offers a chance for conferences to create their own competitive advantages. While some may call it negative recruiting, there’s nothing morally wrong or impermissible about informing prospects and their parents/guardians that one conference offers more protections to student-athletes than another.

If that idea gained traction, it could turn around the race to the bottom. Imagine if conferences got creative:

A rule that allowed for an appeal to the conference office when a scholarship is cancelled or not renewed.

A rule requiring conference schools to renew scholarships within the first week of school, almost creating two-year scholarships.

A rule limiting the ability of conference schools to refuse permission to contact other schools under certain conditions

If every change is quickly reduced to a national rule, there is no way for conferences to differentiate themselves.

Well, for one, competitive advantage is just one part of why oversigning is annoying/outrageous. Turning the Big Ten into the land of the ironclad offer may help swing a recruit here and there but it doesn't do much to prevent "nefarious" things from happening. For two, for every hockey player who picks college there are four third-round-or-worse draft picks plying their trade in the OHL, unlikely to make the NHL or access the nebulous scholarship packages offered therein (approximately a quarter of OHL players actually use any portion of those packages). Kids and families striving for the brass ring often don't make contingency plans because It Can't Happen To Them. The impact of the policies above would be minimal on the recruiting trail.

The suspended license violation he picked up is dropped if he completes the sobriety program, which includes daily breathalyzer tests. I'd guess that if Stonum doesn't follow every letter of the court decree (he spent three days in jail last summer for not doing so) he's gone; if he does manage to not slip up before fall the ball will be in Hoke's court. He and Michael Floyd can have a chagrin-off.

The slipper slope defense is lame and is applied to virtually every change everywhere that anyone has ever opposed. In most cases, it is only good for scaring people who assume that society or leadership is completely incapable of any sort of good judgement at all. All change must be avoided because any change will result in total anarchy. YAWN.

That if we do believe that David Brandon is driven by the bottom line and marketing data, then the data is there to suggest that the leadership is incapable of any sort of "good judgment" relative to this particular topic.

Please note that the "slippery slope" in this case was limited to jerseys and it was the natural extrapolation based solely on where the marketing winds were likely to blow. I don't think that there's anything wrong with change, I think change can be very positive. The problem is that when you change everything or are willing to do so, you run the risk of losing what has made you special or unique in the first place.

Yes, it's just a jersey, I should really just relax, I know that. But I also know I am not alone in this as I think.

I think it's a valid argument, but not because it will lead to anarchy. Rather, because DB and I have different definitions of what constitutes a "good" decision. I like our jerseys, and our ad-free stadium, and our tradition. DB likes money, and brand marketing. If the jerseys sell like hotcakes, DB can point to how we made money hand-over-fist and are getting the brand out there for people to see (via legions of people wearing the jerseys). Thus, it becomes a good idea from a marketing perspective, and will happen again and again.

Denard has spent the offseason working really hard and smiling at people.

Plus, listen to DAB during the press conference, citing the Big Chill jersey as a sort of "test run" for this and that "they couldn't keep them in stock." DAB knows more about marketing and making money than I would ever hope to and he has a job to do. It doesn't mean I have to agree with him about the best way to do it even if he knows "better" than I do.

I agree with this potential concern, but I do think people are painting Brandon into a two-dimensional figure, concerned only with money, when he's a little more complicated than that. This is, after all, a guy who played football here - and under Bo, no less. He should have an idea of what is expected here and what traditions are cherished. Not everything he's done has been a money grab. He has indicated, for instance, that stadium advertising is off the table, even though it would be an easy source of revenue (and at this point, we are one of the absolute last programs in the country not to have advertising). At the same time, he has 25 (soon to be 27) varsity programs to pay for. People demanding varsity lacrosse (and other sports) should maybe think about where the money is supposed to come from to pay for it, given that the AD's expenses have been steadily increasing as it is.

Dave Brandon will not screw with the traditions that his major donors do not want screwed with. The biggest squwak area has to be no advertising in Michigan Stadium, but we've already seen some trial balloons on that, with the Big Chill and the Spring Game. It's lobster potting at its finest.

Look at his blog from last week about the winged helmet, that is a classic "Look, I respect Michigan's traditions, this is the most recognizable symbol of who we are." He does this on the Sunday before he introduces the "Legacy" jersey so he can have his cake ("winged helmets = awesome") and eat it too ("legacy jersey" = CREAM.)

So yes, I think David Brandon respects Michigan's traditions. He's just trying to figure out a way to leverage and monetize it to keep the AD in the black. I respect the notion of paying for the AD, but at some point, I worry, that the cost may be too high.

I'm not sure, and I think a lot of this boils down to that you are asking the fundamental question facing college athletics in the next decade. I do think on some level we'll see some push back if the cost gets too high, but that's a larger issue as well.

I've missed him these past couple of years since he quit blogging. iBFC was one of the first real blogs I read regularly. I just checked out his "real" blog and it's impressive.

On the remedies he suggests, it'd be interesting if the NCAA instituted a home game ban or restriction as opposed to a television ban. For instance, they could limit osu to 4 home games. I don't know if it's feasible and it would give several other schools an additional home game (not sure how to make it equitable), but would suitably punish osu for their infractions.

Totally disagree with Bylaw Blog that the NCAA shouldn't set up scholarship restrictions. 85 total counters as of May 1st in any given year. Anyone cut can transfer without sitting out a season or remain at the current school on scholarship without playing ever again for five years or a degree--whichever comes first.

This won't happen in practice, but it takes care of the athletes better than anything anyone does now.

if players that were cut could remain on scholarship for academic purposes, then we would take 100 players a class, try them all out and cut who we don't want - leaving all the others to stay here for school. every team would just have a mad scramble to get as many players as possible because hey, it's ok they'll still have a scholarship just not to play football

Con: Unless the jerseys sell like crazy, in which case it becomes another jersey next year, and so on and so forth.

I don't know if you took a look at the comments on the UM facebook page yesterday or not Brian, but if those are any indication of the broader fanbase, people will be buying the striped jerseys as fast as the shop in China can produce them. Even worse, in those same comments people were legitimately calling for all-black uniforms. I wouldn't be surprised if special uniforms become an annual thing.

People are ridiculous. All-black uniforms? Black isn't even one of our colors. I could see all-white, because you can accent it with maize and navy, but you wouldn't see navy on black, and the maize would make us look like bumblebees. Honestly, I read the comments on some of those Michigan Football facebook posts, and it is seriously populated by the most idiotic Michigan fans alive. Worse than the Freep comment pages. I'd be shocked if 1 in 100 actually went to UofM. I, too, am surprised that people seem to want them so badly. I honestly don't understand the appeal.

Denard has spent the offseason working really hard and smiling at people.

Brian mentions that the judge gave Stonum a "condescending" lecture and I have to take exception to that description. If I'm a judge in a sh-tty county court having to watch criminals take plea deals all day, the one saving grace would be getting to lecture those same criminals. That would likely be the only good part of the job. It'd be interesting to see the whole transcript from the hearing . . .

Then why would profit take exception to Brian's statement? Brian was saying, "yeah, sucks that the judge gave a condescending lecture to Stonum, but it was justified." I don't know what profit is disagreeing with. Guess I'm just slow on the uptake.

As for myself, I was laughed at by a judge for showing up to court with a noise violation issued at 1030pm on a Friday night. Seriously. He said he'd never gotten one so early (all the others who showed up that day were for violations incurred well after midnight, most around 2-4am), although he didn't dismiss it.

but i am pretty sure it doesn't include coming off the cross and living in one of the ugliest piece of shit sprawl mcmansions i have ever seen.

hey jim, if i were going to be around the house a lot more, i would get the hell out of this tornado magnet. looks like someone dropped an upside down boat on a shitty ranch house. and that entry - blech!

I retweeted some guy who mentioned that Adidas's stripe fetish made it awfully convenient that Michigan deployed "legacy" jerseys that looked nothing like anything anyone has ever worn at M but did have stripes out the wazoo.

I don't know why this idea is still coming up. We have worn a jersey with a block M on it, jerseys with stripes on the sleeves, and helmets with numbers on the sides of them and a gray facemask. Maybe we didn't wear all of these at the same time, but it's not like any of these items was pulled out of thin air.

If anything, I'd argue that the fact that we're mixing motifs in this "legacy" jersey will make it harder to come up with more of them in the future. There's not much else that can be mined from our uniform history (save maybe non-winged helmets).

Can we please have a special summer This Week in Schadenfreude at some point? I know it will have to include some apocalypse-predicting jersey comments from our side, but the OSU business - there's got to be so much great stuff to mine there. Please?